Someone Open Up And Let It Show
by cityofmist
Summary: 'A threat. It's a threat. He's actually saying this.' Companion piece to Coming Back Dissatisfied: the same scene, from Dean's point of view. Because obviously actually watching it on TV isn't enough.


Someone Open Up And Let It Show

Dean opens his eyes and sees Castiel, standing in the shadows.

'Hello, Dean,' Cas says quietly, with a tangible awkwardness in his tone.

'How'd you get in here?' Dean says, on his guard. For all he knows Crowley is here as well, here to get rid of those last three nagging impediments to his heavenly-alliance scheme. In a deeper part of himself he knows with complete certainty that Cas wouldn't allow that, Cas would protect him. Cas is just here to talk. But after Sam and Bobby's insistent doubts, and Castiel's guilty confirmation, the rest of him is yelling not to trust that part. He trusted Cas before, as instantly and implicitly as he would Sam or Bobby. Apparently that didn't work out so well.

'The angel-proofing Bobby put up on the house,' Castiel says bluntly. 'He got a few things wrong.'

'Well, that's too bad we gotta angel-proof it in the first place, isn't it,' Dean retorts, allowing some of the burning resentment to creep into his tone.

'I want you to understand,' Cas says, with that quiet emphasis that Dean would recognise anywhere. There's truth in his tone. He really does think he's in the right. He really does think that he can come up with some neat little logical chain of reasoning and Dean will suddenly jump round to his point of view, because Dean is human and fickle and easily swayed.

'Oh, believe me, I get it,' Dean snaps, because that's not how it works. 'Blah, blah, Raphael, right?'

'I'm _doing _this for _you_, Dean. I'm doing this because of you.'

It hits Dean like a wrecking ball. _I did this. I made him this way. _He turns away, because he can't help it, and a little showreel of images dances through his head. _Seriously, you're going to walk in there and tell him the truth?_ _Eddie Moscone, also FBI. Help me, now, _please_. _Dean taught Cas to lie, to pretend to be what he isn't, to turn on the people whose side he's supposed to be on. What a shock, there, that he did it again. 'Because of me, yeah,' Dean says quietly. 'You've gotta be kidding me.'

'You're the one who taught me,' Castiel says. _Yes_. 'That freedom, and free will - '

'You're a frickin' child, you know that?' Dean yells, lashing out, thinking, _Team Free Will, yeah, back when we were all on the same side. _'Just because you can do what you want, doesn't mean, you get to do _whatever _you want!'

'I. Know. What I'm doing, Dean,' Castiel states, the first hint of anger rising in his tone.

Dean blinks and tries to string together a coherent thought. 'I'm not going to logic you, okay?' he says more quietly. 'I'm saying, don't, just because. I'm _asking _you not to.'

Castiel looks away.

'That's it,' Dean says.

'I don't _understand_,' Cas says, too fast, turning back to meet Dean's eyes.

'Look, next to Sam,' Dean says, 'you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family. Cas, you are like a brother to me, so if I'm asking you not to do something, you gotta trust me, man.'

He expects gratitude, acceptance; he's hoping for acquiescence, even though already when he tells Cas that he's Dean's family, he's starting wearily to change the tense: _were_. _You were_. But a spark of irritation flares in Castiel's eyes, and he says evenly, 'Or what?'

Dean stares, betrayal seeping nauseously into his stomach. Castiel's eyes are calm and blue and unrecognisable.

So it's coming to this.

'Then I'll have to do what I have to do to stop you,' Dean says flatly, and tries not to think about what that's likely to be.

'You can't, Dean,' Castiel says, without a trace of conscious arrogance. 'You're just a man. I'm an angel.'

'I don't know. I've taken some pretty big fish,' Dean says. It's a threat. A threat. He's actually saying this. _Don'tbestupidDeanthisisCas_, that single part of him is yelling, and weaving over it is a counterpoint of: you can't trust him. You have to stop him, because no one else will.

He can't separate the two any more.

Castiel glances away from him again, and says, 'I'm sorry, Dean.' His name comes out like the closing of a door.

'Well, I'm sorry too, then,' Dean starts to say, but Castiel has already done the thing where he's with Dean and then he isn't, with no concrete point of transition, and Dean is playing to an empty room. Castiel has left. Cas is gone. It's too late.


End file.
